larryh

According to the MetroPlugIn website FAQs: What is the cost of a Level 2 charging station for the home? We sell the ClipperCreek LCS-25 residential charging station for $795. In most cases, home installation (using one of our affiliates) will cost less than $700 – for a total cost under $1,500. We also sell the Eaton residential charging station for $1,095, for a total installed cost under $1,800. I don't expect PlugInNow to be any different. So based on this, I expect that the installation price will be $700 + $200 (estimate of additional cost when the fuse box is in the basement).

I don't think my estimate will be applicable to your situation. I asked another electrician for their prices for installation. They quoted they have performed several installations for $350 - $400, depending on the distance to the charger, when there is room in the panel for a 40 amp breaker and the panel is in the garage. So if it costs $400 to do an installation when the panel is in the garage, I wonder how much more it should cost when the panel is in the basement and they have to run the wire through 30' of floor joists. I would think the difference would be at most a couple hours of labor and 50' more of wire. A couple of hundred dollars more?

I should be getting the estimate sometime next week. Mr. Electric will run wire from my electric panel in an unfinished section of my basement to the garage (about 30') through the floor joists. I have a 150 amp main breaker in the panel with plenty of room for a 40 amp breaker for the charger. Once in the garage, he will install another 20' of conduit along the wall to the charger. Note that if you use the electrician that they recommend, you get a 3 year warranty on the charger vs. a 1 year warranty if you install it yourself or use another electrician. But they probably add on a small surcharge to the estimate provided by the electrician they recommended for that (maybe 5%). I had considered adding a $75 submeter socket provided by the electric company for lower charging rates. However, Mr. Electric said the cost to install that would be greater than $2500. I'm not sure all what he was planning to do, but it included installing a new meter socket along with a new electric panel. So I will not be installing a submeter.

I filled out the request form for the Bosch Power Max 30 Amp / 18' Cord charger at their web site a couple of weeks ago. They contacted Mr. Electric to come out and do a survey, and provide an estimate for the installation. Mr. Electric came out today to do the survey. Mr. Electric submits the estimate to PlugInNow and they in turn will provide me with the cost for the total package. The charger will be available at the end of June. The manual recommends a 30 Amp charger: Ideal conditions include a 240V charging station and a minimum 30A service and high-voltage battery at a moderate temperature. Mr. Electric was the installer that Ford had previously selected for its Charging Stations. Mr. Electric would purchase the Ford/Leviton Charging Station from Best Buy (special order) and do the installation. However, Ford has now selected AeroVironment as the provider for its Charging Stations. Mr. Electric and Best Buy are no longer involved.

I also have V3.5.1. So the Go Times should work if you have Sync VersionGen2 - V3.5.1 and system version 4.29.12285_PRODUCT. You could always try a master reset to see if that helps, but that will erase all your settings and you will need to pair your phone again. .

I believe Microsoft provided the operating system and Ford and other vendors developed the interface. I'm sure they all share some of the blame. In safety critical applications such as this, the operating system should never crash and needs to be tolerant of faults in both the hardware and the software. No matter how poorly the application software is written, the operating system should never crash. However, you can only protect against so many hardware failures and hardware driver bugs. I'm not sure what Performing Scheduled Maintenance means, if the operating system crashed or just the application software crashed. Ford is ultimately responsible for integrating all the hardware/software from the various vendors and the final product.

I talked to the dealer about this. They said that the system reboots itself under various conditions. Apparently the work around for poorly written software is to reboot frequently before things really get bad and the system actually crashes (hence the term "scheduled maintenance"). I guess that is typical of Microsoft. You have to reboot Windows when things aren't working as expected and at least once a week as performance starts to degrade. They should have hired a different company to do the Sync Software. As for out of date POI NAV information, that is probably stored on the SD card. So unless you keep buying updates, the POI information is going to become more and more out of date with time. As was my experience, some of the data is already obsolete before you even get the latest SD card.

Today, while I was stopped a stop light, the radio suddenly stopped and the MyFord Touch screen went blank. A minute later the screen came back and displayed Sync Performing Scheduled Maintenance. I assume that sync crashed and was rebooting. I would hardly call a system crash scheduled maintenance--it is unscheduled maintenance. Also, I have noticed that Nav doesn't seem to work reliably. There multiple times when it refused to accept commands from the steering wheel controls and voice commands, but would accept them when entered from the MyFord Touch screen. When using voice commands, it would say that I am too close to my destination when the destination is 30 miles away. The POI (Points Of Interest) are also unreliable. I ask for a hardware store, it directs me to a shopping center that has no hardware store. I select another one close by, it has me drive around the block and I end up at the same place that I started when it says that I have arrived at my destination. Who provides the POIs? Sirius Travel Link? They should make sure that the entries are accurate so people don't end up driving around in circles looking for things that don't exist. Ford/Microsoft still have a lots of bugs to fix with Sync.

Congratulations. I was just reading the section of the manual describing the car settings in MyFord Touch. On the screen, press the settings icon (with the gears), then help, and finally system information. It will display the Sirius Satellite radio ESN number. Make sure you enter a 0 vs O correctly for the VIN. I don't know if the link below will work or not, but it has some instructional videos that you may find of interest: http://owner.ford.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=Owner/Page/OwnerVideoPage

If you look at the dealer invoice for an Energi, you will see the following charges: Fuel Charge: $47.88 Priced DORA: N/C Advertising Assessment: $601.00 Destination and Delivery: $795.00 So the dealer paid for a full tank of gas when they bought the car.

I guess the edit button for the go times does work on my car. You just have to press the start button for the car rather than the start button for the radio to get it to work.

Can you select the edit button under Go Times? That button is always grayed out for me. It do not have the option of turning all the go times on or off, i.e. vacation mode, or editing them/looking at them in the car. I use the myfordmobile.com web site to set the go times. The interface is very frustrating--it doesn't always do what you ask. But if I can get the interface to do what I want, the go times work on the car. If I go to the settings screen and look at the version, I see the following: CCPU SW Version: 4.29.12285_PRODUCT This is what I see when the current Go Time is active. You will see the Edit button is grayed out.

I want to be able to use Fuelly to track trends and seasonal variations, so I am interested in correct MPGe readings for each entry. I have the option of purchasing a submeter from the electric company for $70 for the charging station. The advantage would be a rate of $0.0585 per kWh during off-peak hours. But if I use it during peak hours, the rate is a very expensive at $0.3785 per kWh, which would wipe out any savings from off-peak hours. I would be able to monitor energy usage with the submeter. Unfortunately, the car decides to charge whenever it wants regardless of how I set the value-charge settings. It likes to charge up immediately to about 20% if it is empty and disregard my value charge settings. I would probably have to install some sort of timer to prevent it from charging during peak hours. Also, it seems to be constantly running various pumps and fans while plugged-in, but not charging. Also, peak hours are at the time you would like to charge the most: 4 p.m. to 9 pm. I am not going to remember to go out and plug in the car at 9 pm every night. I'm not sure that the electric company would like it if I used another circuit to charge the car during peak hours--that would defeat the purpose of the discounted rates for off-peak hours. I would have to pay for installation of the submeter. I wonder how expensive that would be. I'm not sure that the discounted prices for electricity will offset the cost of doing this any time soon.

I assume you are already aware of: http://www.paulmachenry.com/product-information From discussions in the Blue Oval forums, the two batteries mentioned in the manual appear to be the wrong batteries: BXT-96R-500 or BXT-96R-590. The correct one is BXT-99R-390, which is the one I have. I think you have posted in other forums where people have discussed this issue. Unfortunately, that one is not mentioned in the link above.

If you purchased the car ahead of time so they could charge the car, I would expect the car to be fully charged when I come to pick it up. It only costs about $0.70 to charge it. In my case, I just showed up at the dealer and purchased the car. It had not been charged. So I ended up driving it home in hybrid mode. They would have charged it if I given them notice ahead of time. You can use the supplied 110 volt charger to charge the car while waiting for the charging station if you have an appropriate outlet.

Whenever you make an entry into Fuelly, you will have to include both gas gallons and electric equivalent gallons used during the period of time for the entry. Otherwise, the reported MPGe for that entry is going to be incorrect since you didn't give it the correct energy consumed for the distance driven. Are you planning to also fill up your gas tank at the end of each month so you know much gas you used in addition to how many equivalent electric gallons you used, or are you planning to use what the car reports it used for gas? I think it would be much simpler to make an entry each time you filled up with gas, including both gas and equivalent electric gallons (as I did above). But then you will have to account for any plug-in energy or gas used during the trip from the gas station until you get home if you are using a meter for electric usage. You will have to rely on the car for this. Note that my car reported it used 12.92 gallons of gas. I only put in 11.29 gallons. This is based on the lifetime summary display showing 70.5 MPG vs. my calculated 80.5 MPG. I believe I reset the lifetime summary before I left the dealer when I purchased the car.

I have updated my fuel-up at Fuelly to reflect MPGe rather than MPG. I don't have a meter to measure how many kWh I use to charge the car. In addition, I charge at multiple locations. So I am going to have to rely on what the car tells me it used for plug-in energy. The mileage changed from 80.5 MPG to 59.2 MPGe. For 908.6 miles I have driven the car, the total electric and gas cost was $60.29. So if I go 12,000 miles per year, the estimated annual cost is about $796/year. I used 11.291 gallons of gas which cost $46.28. I used 138.1 kWh of plug-in electric power, or 138.1/34.02 = 4.059 equivalent gallons, which cost $14.01. So the total equivalent gallons consumed was 11.291 + 4.059 =15.35 equivalent gallons. The price per equivalent gallon was then ($46.28 + $14.01)/15.35 = $3.928 / equivalent gallon.

To answer your original question, this is from the FAQs for Fuelly: What vehicles won't work at Fuelly? Fuelly is built to track vehicles from motorcycles and scooters up to a standard SUV. All of our assumptions are based on the idea that the vehicle will use liquid fuel in a single tank. Anything outside of that range won't work at the site. That means Fuelly can't track electric vehicles like the Plug-in Prius or Chevy Volt. (If you have a Volt, try voltstats.net instead.) Fuelly also can't track commercial trucks, Bi-fuel vehicles, RVs, motorhomes, or lawn equipment. Hopefully, Ford will update MyFord Mobile soon, as advertised, so that we can track energy consumption better. I assume it will work just fine to track MPGe using Fuelly. You will also have to compute the cost per gallon of "MPGe" fuel--you can't just enter the cost per gallon for gas if you use MPGe. That cost will vary quite a bit depending upon how much plug-in power you use versus gas. So for the period ending 4/30, did you run solely on plug-in power for 112.6 MPGe? And for the period ending 5/15, did you run exclusively in hybrid mode for 46.4 MPG? Then what you entered is correct. Even though your electric cost is $4.866 / MPGe gallon, you are getting 112 MPGe in plug-in energy mode vs. only 46.4 MPGe for hybrid mode. Your cost per mile in plug-in energy mode is $4.866 / 112 = $0.04344. You cost per mile for hybrid mode is $3.469 / 46.4 = $.074762931. So hybrid mode costs you about twice the amount as plug-in energy. If you have mixed hybrid modes and plug-in energy modes, you are going to have compute the MPGe price per gallon.

I'm not sure that the above calculations are valid. In hybrid mode, it appears that regen miles and EV miles can differ. Regen miles may only include estimated additional EV miles gained from energy recaptured through regenerative braking. I'm not sure that it includes the EV miles associated with the ICE charging the battery or when slowing down without using the brakes. The display doesn't seem to provide enough information to separate EV miles into plug-in energy vs ICE. I think you have to keep track of EV miles yourself while the car is using plug-in energy (Energi Plug-In Power Mode) vs. when the ICE is running (Hybrid Mode). So the actual Hybrid Mode mileage is probably greater than 32 mpg.

Yes--the extended warranties are transferrable. Is an ESP contract transferable if I sell my vehicle? Yes. For a $75 transfer fee you can transfer your contract to another person (private party) to give them the added confidence of Ford ESP. Coverage is transferable from private party to private party, through the life of the contract. The fee may vary by state. There are many other internet sites that offer the Ford ESP warranty. I selected Anderson-Koch because I was familiar with them--they were only 15 miles away from me. I was hesitant to purchase from a dealer on the internet that I was not familiar with.

There are two rubber gaskets around the ring. The outermost one is right on top the LED ring and can be rolled up away from the ring. I think it is attached to another piece under the ring. The inner rubber gasket is above the outer gasket and used to ensure a good seal when you close the door.

Hope this photo helps.

The kWh displayed at the bottom right is the plug-in energy consumed by the car, i.e. energy from the power company. So the total electric cost to operate the car is correct, i.e. $13.68. And of course, the gas consumed is 4.27 gallons for a cost of $15.37. Now you need to separate plug-in energy miles from gas miles. If you knew the regen miles, you could estimate the plug-in energy miles and the gas miles. You would have to record the regen miles before resetting the trip odometer and at the end of the trip(s) looking at the lifetime summary display when you turn the car off and compute the difference. Let's assume that you had 70 regen miles. Then of the 492.1 EV miles, 422.1 of the miles were from plug-in energy. And of course, for 612.2 - 492.1 = 120.1 miles the ICE was on. Assuming the percentage of regen miles was the same for the plug-in energy miles and the ICE miles. Then we can associate 70*422.1 / (422.1 + 120.1) = 54.5 of the regen miles with the plug-in energy and 70*120.1 / (422.1 + 120.1) = 15.5 of the regen miles with the ICE. So the total plug-in energy mileage is 422.1 + 54.5 = 477.6 and the total ICE mileage is 120.1 + 15.5 = 135.6. So the plug-in energy cost is $13.68 / 477.6 = $0.0286 / mile. The ICE cost is $15.37 / 135.6 = $0.1133 / mile. In your case, gas is almost four times more expensive than electricity. However, you don't seem to be getting very high mileage in hybrid mode: 135.6 / 4.27 = 32 mpg. I would expect more. The worst case hybrid mileage that I observed was about 37 mpg when it was cold and I had the heater on.

I made a 56.4 mile trip today, mostly freeway/highway driving. I went 21.6 miles before the ICE turned on. The ICE consumed 0.83 gallons of gas. I used 5.9 kWh of plug-in energy. So the cost for EV mode for me was approximately: 5.9 kWh * $0.10144/kWh / 21.6 miles = $0.0278/mile. The cost per mile for hybrid mode was then: $4.299 /gallon * 0.83 gallon / (56.4-21.6) miles = $0.1025/mile. So gas is more than 3.5 times more expensive than electricity (for this trip). If you keep track of the regen miles and the total gas used, you might be able to estimate the costs more accurately.